Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11 -- Ministers from five East European countries Oct. 10 signed an agreement for construction of a crude pipeline extension that will link Caspian producers with consumers in Northern Europe.
The agreement, signed by Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania, calls for the building of a 490-km extension to the existing Odessa-Brody pipeline and securing supplies of Azerbaijan's crude oil to fill the extended line.
"This deal will have great impact not only for signatory countries, but for all of Europe," said Polish president Lech Kaczynski, whose country will become the new terminus for the pipeline.
The Odessa-Brody leg of the pipeline from Odessa to Brody was completed in 2004, and the extension will stretch from Brody to Plock, in central Poland, and from there to the port of Gdansk.
The pipeline will carry some 14 million tonne/year of crude. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev said his country is committed to the project and that it will produce some 55 million tonnes of crude in 2008.
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